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Today, I have a wonderful guest blog post by Nadine from Home of Understanding on learning to love yourself.

I’d like to say a massive thank you to Nadine for writing such a nice post for my blog. It’s a post that we can all relate to and something that is absolutely fundamental to our lives. Learning to love and accept yourself really is a journey and something that takes time and willpower to master.

This post is for all of us that need to focus our energy and attention into positive thoughts about ourselves, rather than letting our inner saboteur win. The tips Nadine has provided in this post are simple, effective and achievable, which means we can all take another important step to becoming a happier person.

I hope you enjoy reading this post as much as I did and that you can take something helpful from it.

I’ve linked Nadine’s blog and social channels at the bottom of this post. Please give her a follow and stay up to date with her latest content!

From Nadine herself

Hey everyone,

I am Nadine from Home of Understanding and I mainly write about topics that I feel should be talked about more in our society. I hope to create an open community that discusses these topics and establishes mutual understanding.

It is my goal to raise awareness of these topics, but also create a safe space for everyone who felt misunderstood or ignored before. So far I have published posts about misophonia, insomnia and mental disorders, dreams, wishes or goals, as well as pressure on young people.

I hope that you find something interesting on my blog. Thank you for reading!

Learning to love and accept yourself, that is something I’ve always struggled with personally.

I still do and probably also will in the future, but it is important to understand that learning to love yourself is a journey, rather than a destination.

It will happen in little steps. You need to remember that it is not a matter of one day, one week or one month, it takes time, energy and work. There will be setbacks, but the further you get, the better you will feel.

Loving and taking care of yourself is becoming increasingly important in stressful times like ours. There are many different ways of increasing the positive feelings towards yourself and I will try to elaborate on a few of them.

Say “no” more often (especially to your loved ones)

I am starting with something incredibly difficult.

I often agree to do stuff I don’t really want to do, but I still do if someone I really care about asks me to. If it makes them happy, of course I will do it. I put other people’s wishes before my own.

However, it can feel very freeing to say “no” once in a while. I often fear that when I say no, I will feel bad about myself because I did not help the person. Of course, that might happen, but most of the time it does not.

Helping others makes you a nice and considerate person, but you need to remember that you do not have to say “yes” to everything.

If you really want to love yourself, you need to be okay with your decisions and you usually are when you choose what makes you happy. Otherwise, you might become a person you are not and that will inevitably make you like yourself less.

So next time if someone asks you to do something you really don’t want to do, say “no”.

Say “yes” more often

A contradiction to what I just said, but you will find out in a second what the difference is.

You should say “no” more often to things you have done before and you know you won’t enjoy doing. However, you should say “yes” more often to things you have not done before and where you can’t really say whether they will turn out as horrible as you think they will.

Confidence usually helps, but if you do not have a lot of it, try doing things that scare you, since these are the things that build confidence.

Leave your comfort zone. I know this is a hard one, but I would not say it if it did not help. I tend to avoid everything that I feel slightly insecure about or that makes me feel afraid, but when I actually do something that scared me before, most of the time it is not as bad as I anticipated it to be. If it is, I can try it several more times.

Of course, there will be a point where it stops, but at least then I know that it is nothing for me. I always try several times. I know that some of you might be much shyer or more insecure than me, but please try at least once.

No one can expect you to face your worst fears that evoke anxiety (e.g. bungee jumping when you are afraid of heights), but that is not what I am talking about.

I am referring to things like talking in public or opening up more often or saying something nice to a stranger, things that would make you slightly cringe or uncomfortable. For some people, these might be their biggest fears. For others, these might be completely normal things, but you can find something else that scares you a little bit and do that.

I recently organised a seminar and had to introduce the speakers that attended. I was so nervous and felt uncomfortable and insecure, but it was not that bad after all. It helped that there were not that many people in the audience, but I think I can do it again next time with a bigger audience. It really boosted my confidence and opinion of myself.

Take care of yourself

This can mean several things. Sometimes it means crying your eyes out at night and hugging yourself, sometimes it means doing yoga in the morning or reading a book.

It basically means to just take a little bit of time each day to do what you really feel like doing.

This can relate to physical or mental health, but whatever it is, it will make you feel better about yourself. This also relates to eating by the way: It may feel right to eat a healthy salad, but it also often feels right to eat the chocolate. If that happens: eat the chocolate and don’t feel bad because you think it is too unhealthy or you will get fat.

Also: Use makeup if you like seeing yourself with it, don’t use it if you don’t. Take baths or long showers every once in a while and actively take care of your body (and try not to daydream while doing it). Being aware of your body often can help as well.

Have a positive body image

I’m sure you knew this was coming, but just because it is predictable, it does not make it less important. This, of all things, will happen to everyone at some point in their lives. I am still struggling with it every day, but I know that it will get better in the future.

You do not have to love everything about yourself, but you have to at least accept the parts of your body that you don’t like. This is easier said than done but try looking at yourself in the mirror more often, especially at the parts you do not like and actively tell yourself that they are okay, they are part of you and you are a wonderful person.

Most of us want to fit our own personal ideal (which, sadly, is often too close to the one of society), but we will never actually look like it.

I must admit, it depends strongly on my mood what I think about my body. Sometimes it is: “Why the hell are looks so overrated, I am an amazing person and my body is okay like it is. Damn I look good and I am healthy!” However, this is often only minutes away from: “I look disgusting. I am the most horrible person I have ever seen.”

Try to stop thinking about the second. Remind yourself of it every day and ignore the voices in your head that tell you are anything other than gorgeous.

Do not torture yourself for anything you THINK you have done wrong

I cannot emphasise this enough, but do not torture yourself. Not for the things you have done wrong and especially not for the things you THINK you did wrong.

Often, these two seem to be identical, but trust me, they are not. If you have problems with loving yourself, there is a high probability that there are a lot of things you THINK you did wrong but were actually totally right. What might happen equally often is that you indeed did something wrong, but no one noticed or even cared.

Why?

Because everyone makes mistakes and it is totally okay. There is no such thing as a perfect person, so start being gentle to yourself. Even if you do fuck up really hard, forgive yourself. Often it is easier to forgive everyone else than to forgive yourself, but it feels so good to actually let go of something.

So if you want to feel better about yourself, you should definitely give this a try. You deserve to be happy as much as everyone else.

Finally, I would like to give a few book recommendations that might help you to let go of the harsh attitude you have towards yourself. Give them a try and tell me if they helped.

Also, thank you very much Sarah for letting me write something for your blog.

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4 Comments on Learning to love yourself

I agree completely! Specially with the saying no to the things you don’t want to do, and saying Yes to the things you want more of! I definitely struggled with this personally and once I started implementing it, I definitely saw my whole life improve overall

This was such a lovely post with such great tips! I completely agree with saying yes more often, I used to be terrified of doing this but once I pushed myself out of my comfort zone, it became a lot easier and I’ve been able to do amazing things because of it. Absolutely loved reading this!xx

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About me

My name is Sarah and I'm the owner of A Woman's Confidence. I'm a makeup and skincare junkie who loves trying out new products. This blog shares all my product reviews, makeup looks and comparisons. I hope you enjoy it!